


Blue Anemone Mask

by seraphic_gate



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 01:48:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14486154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphic_gate/pseuds/seraphic_gate
Summary: Did you ever see a man so beautiful...





	Blue Anemone Mask

# Masquerade AU

Sorey looked beyond the velvet rope. On the other side was a hallway of tapestries and pottery from ancient civilizations. He was watering at the mouth at the thought of all that delicious history. Just past a rope. And he was a professional historian, right? It’s not like he’d break anything.

“Sir, you’re not allowed back there.” The voice came from a big man in a black suit wearing an earpiece radio. 

Sorey looked sheepishly behind him. He wasn’t aware he was being watched, but this guy had him figured out in one glance. “I wasn’t going to,” he said, despite having seriously considered it. “Just looking, really!”

“Please return to the party.”

Sorey sighed. 

A third voice echoed in the chamber, followed by the clack of expensive shoes against tile. “He’s with me.”

Sorey turned to see quite possibly the most beautiful man he had ever seen. Dressed in a pure white suit with a formal vest and coat tails, he was only about five and a half feet and lithe as a gymnast, but his presence commanded the room. The top half of his face was covered with an elaborate silver mask, but what Sorey could see was a delicate porcelain pale chin and a pair of soft, pink, lips. 

He didn’t know this man who had claimed to be with him; but he couldn’t complain.

“Yes sir,” the guard said. “Shall I go with you as well? For your safety?”

“No, you shan’t,” the young man groaned. “Please go bother my uncle, if you must have something to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sorey stood next to the beautiful young man in awkward silence until the security guard was clear of the room. 

He turned to Sorey, mouth twisted into an annoyed frown. “What do you think you’re doing, trying to sneak into the exhibit like that? There are security cameras, you know.” 

Sorey raised his hands defensively and tried to smile his way out of it. “I wasn’t going to go past the rope, I swear! Just wanted a closer look.” 

And a closer look of this man revealed that the exquisite mask was formed in the shape of a butterfly across his face, with a blue anemone flower attached to the left side. The most exotic and intense eyes stared back at him from behind those wings, in the rich pink and purples of a sunset.

“Your eyes are amazing,” Sorey marveled, interrupting his own train of thought. 

The eyes rolled as the young man scoffed. Then he unhooked the velvet rope from its rod. “You coming?”

“Ah!” Sorey looked around himself. “Really? What if someone catches us?”

“It’s fine, you won’t get in trouble if I’m around.”

Sorey remembered (only vaguely, he had been distracted by a cute boy after all) how the private security for the event had called him “sir” and let him go. “Do you work for the museum or something?”

“Something like that.”

Hmm, mysterious. “If that’s the case, then sure!” He grinned ear to ear and followed through to the new exhibit.

***

Sorey had never had this much trouble focusing on artifacts right in front of him before. He knew the museum’s regular exhibits so well, he could give the tours himself. But the mysterious young man was so eye catching that he found himself having trouble absorbing even the most interesting archaeological facts. 

Being behind his own mask didn’t make him any less embarrassed when he was caught staring.

“You want me to explain it to you?” the young man scoffed. “This is quite an important artifact for you to know nothing about it.”

“I was looking at you,” Sorey admitted, because pretending like he didn’t know a piece of the Rolacian Scrolls when he saw one would be way more embarrassing. He puffed out his chest proudly. “I did a thesis predicting the existence of this very piece before it was even discovered.”

His companion huffed again in a haughty manner that was more than cute. “I was there when they unearthed it.”

“Are you _serious_?” Sorey’s mouth dropped open and he suddenly wanted to know everything about this man. “How did you get onto the assignment? What an opportunity!”

“Calm down, it’s not like I found it myself or anything.”

“Still…”

He brushed past him. “Come on, let me show you what else they found. There’s much more to learn about in context than the contents of that scroll.”

Sorey wanted to stay and study for hours, but he followed.

***

After a few hours of looking at artifacts and grilling each other on their knowledge, they reached the end of the new wing and the balcony there that overlooked the courtyard. 

He leaned over the rail to see everyone dancing and drinking in their masks. 

“Anyone missing you down there?” 

Sorey shook his head with a sigh. “I was only invited on a technicality. Can’t say I know anyone here. I’m not rich enough to mingle with these types.”

“You might be the only one here who know anything about the exhibit.” He leaned on the rail next to him. “Except for me, of course.”

Sorey laughed. “It’s been fun,” he said. “A dream come true, I’d say. To see these artifacts, and to match wits with a fellow-minded individual.”

He pushed off the rail and folded his arms across his chest, smirking. “Not sure you matched me, but you did at least keep up.”

“Come on, I’m an expert in the field!”

“And so am I.”

“Then why haven’t I met you before?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at Sorey from behind his mask with those haunting eyes of his. “I don’t know you either,” he said, after a moment. “In fact, you came off as something of a thief at first.”

“Oh come on, you don’t think I’m a thief.”

He laughed. “The worst thief ever, maybe.”

The music came to a pause and the live band downstairs began to play another tune. This one was a waltz, one of the only dances that Sorey knew anything about. He held out his hand.

He got an eyeroll in response. “You’re serious?”

“Of course,” Sorey replied. “May I have this dance?”

A slender hand in a delicate white glove slipped into his. With a grin, he pulled him in, wrapping his other arm around the small waist he’d been eyeing all night. 

He’d never done anything like this before. Perhaps he was emboldened by the mask that hid his face, or the darkness of the unoccupied balcony that obscured them from the sight of those below. 

The nameless man in his arms was like a fairy tale prince dressed in white.

“If you were a thief,” the moonlit prince mused, “what would you steal? Which of these treasures has the most value on the black market, would you say?”

“There’s only one thing here worth stealing,” Sorey said. “And I think I’ll take it for my own private collection.”

“Oh yeah?” he scoffed. “And what’s that?”

He gave one more cheesy grin as he convinced himself to go through with it. Sorey leaned into his dancing partner and kissed him. He barely touched his lips, so as not to be forceful, hoping upon hope that those lip would press back against his.

They did. He felt the rim of the butterfly mask press against his cheek as his fairy tale prince kissed him back. The scent of a bright cologne filled his senses as he inhaled a breath through his nose. 

Those lips were impossibly soft and just slightly warm. He was wondering if this was really real, and then the sound of an intruder interrupted their perfect fantasy world.

“Mikleo?” he heard calling from the entrance to the wing. “Mikleo, did you sneak up here?”

Was that his name? It would suit him. Quite elegant.

His fantasy pushed away from him. Scared violet eyes widened at him. “Hide!”

“What?” Sorey was being shoved behind the balcony’s roped up curtain. “I thought you said it was fine?”

“I can’t explain now, just hide, damn it.” 

Sorey did as told and hid himself in the velvety tomb of the pulled curtain.. There was an opening where he could just barely see the man calling the name of Mikleo from the knee down.

“You’ve been playing around up here for hours,” the male voice scolded. “Pay attention to something other than your toys for once and take some responsibility.”

“Sorry, uncle.”

This uncle person sighed and relaxed a bit, like he really didn’t want to be angry. “Your mother fell ill and had to head home early. We need you to do the closing speech for the VIP group.”

“Oh…”

The young man, whose name was apparently Mikleo, trailed off into thought, no doubt wondering if his mother was all right. 

“Come on, let’s go.”

Mikleo hesitated, and in that same moment Sorey realized that he was about to leave and disappear beyond another velvet rope to the VIPs who couldn’t possibly enjoy his presence more than Sorey. Without letting Sorey tell him his name. Without saying goodbye. Their chance meeting was over too soon. The taste of his lips was still on his mouth. 

They walked away. Sorey had no idea why the discovery of him would be bad for Mikleo, but stayed hidden until their footsteps had long trailed off.

He emerged from the curtain and sighed, alone on the balcony. If Mikleo was someone important enough to give a speech, he was sure he’d see him again. That didn’t lessen the loss.

Something caught his eye, and he reached down to his feet to see what had fallen there. It was a blue anemone, the one from Mikleo’s mask.

He lifted it and held it to his face. A real anemone had no scent, but this one did. It was a high end silk flower, lightly perfumed with that cologne he’d gotten a whiff of before. 

“So it’s the prince who leaves the glass slipper this time,” he said to himself, immediately cringing at how stupid it sounded. He was going to find Mikleo, and he knew exactly where to start.


End file.
